


(i’m) just a corpse in a centerfold

by rayfelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, References to Depression, background Remus/Tonks, background Ron/Hermione - Freeform, dealing with the aftermath of voldemort, golden trio being wholesome and supportive, sad pinning emo boys to nerds in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27083239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayfelle/pseuds/rayfelle
Summary: “That’s one way to put it.” Harry wants to roll his eyes and shoot back a choice of words of his own, but this is not the place for that. “But I meant it. I understand and I don’t hold you accountable for anything. We were both just kids, no matter how grown up we thought we were.”Everything about Draco eases. It’s like the words spoken had their own power to them. “I never thought that I would be grateful for a Gryffindor’s bleeding heart.”“Not a Gryffindor’s heart, just mine.” Harry feels relief for some reason.(or: there is a diary, there are secrets revealed on accident and bravery in not being afraid of a rejection)
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 154





	(i’m) just a corpse in a centerfold

The war has been over for five years now, but Harry is still stuck in it, in some ways.

Not quite in the way that he believes that it never ended, or that he somehow thinks that he should have stayed dead, there on the cold dirt of the Forbidden Forest (although, some nights the thought does come and hovers in his vicinity, buzzing like a mosquito). For Harry it’s the tremble in his fingers when he raises his wand and remembers the red eyes that had been on the other end of it, the sneer of his name that Voldemort hissed before he cast the _Avada Kedavra_.

It’s the emptiness, the sense of _I don’t know_ that Harry answers when someone asks him what he wants to do.

Before the final battle he would have said an auror. Before the final battle there were no ghosts of the dead friends and family haunting him, the echoes of those on Voldemort’s side that sometimes stared at Harry from dark corners, their faces covered in blood and dirt.

Sleep is another thing that sometimes just doesn’t come and Harry spends the night sitting on the porch of his tiny cottage and watching the stars, holding onto a warm cup of tea just to feel like he really is _here_ and not drifting away.

The war has been over for years but some shambles of it live on in Harry and he doesn’t know how to deal with them, how to heal them. Hermione said that therapy helped her, Ron gave his all in the auror trainings, later through actual auror work, and that mellowed out the jumpiness he had inherited from the final battle.

The sun rises above the horizon slowly, the sea sloshes against the cliffs loudly and Harry breathes in the salty air. The cottage had been nothing but a forgotten Potter property, kind of falling apart when Harry first showed up here and decided that this will be his new home. Away from the wizarding world and _Daily Prophet_ , even the ever so noisy _Witch Weekly_. None of them knew where tiny Cliffside Lookout is located, and Harry is glad.

Kreacher not so much, until Harry decided to take up gardening and then the elf seemed more on board.

“Master Harry is not sleeping again.” Kreacher croaks from behind Harry, his wrinkled face pulled into something scolding and worried. Harry has grown on him the same way he grew on Harry during these five years.

Harry almost smiles. “Yeah. It’s that kind of night again.” He pauses, thinks of the things he should be doing and the ones he _needs_ to do. “I think I will go visit Cedric tomorrow, so no need for lunch.”

Kreacher doesn’t look pleased. The old elf grumbles under his nose for a moment, tiny eyes narrowed. “Fine. If Master Harry so wishes.”

The sun rises slowly and Harry watches as the world becomes brighter by the second. He wonders if he will also be able to do that, one day.

…

After the graveyard, where Cecdric’s grave is always decorated with flowers and gifts, with his forever young picture smiling wide and cheerful, Harry feels less tired. Less tired, but definitely sadder.

Cedric is not the only one that was buried too young. The children of Hogwarts were the brave ones, kids barely legal and some even not yet that, that looked Voldemort in the eye and told him no, you will no longer scare us, you will not go any further. Harry fought with them, always tells whoever is asking, that they were the backbone of that last battle, the ones that ended the war that their parents had started.

There are many graves that Harry visits, but Cedric is the first one to die because of Harry. Because of Voldemort’s greed and arrogance. So, this one is special.

Harry swallows. “I’ll see you again soon, mate.”

The graveyard is quiet, as most wizarding ones are. In this one there are some more of those that fell during the last battle, so Harry visits them as well, repeats his _thank you_ , his _I’m sorry_ and _I hope you’re okay up there_.

Just as Harry is about to disapparate he sees two women walk to the cemetery. Thankfully, they haven’t noticed him, both too busy whispering between each other. But even with her back turned to him, Harry still recognizes Cho Chang. The witch looks tired, the kind of tired that comes with rewarding work and having lived through the things that they did. Clinging onto her arm is Marietta Edgecombe.

He watches the two witches for a while, to make sure they are far away that the pop of his disapparation will not disturb them. Harry has not spoken to Cho since his fifth year and he doesn’t want to start now, even after everything.

…

Hermione adorned with pregnancy glow and a round tummy is a strange sight. Ron with his awkward hovering and nervousness over every single thing that his girlfriend does is even more so. But Harry loves them both, fiercely and strongly, so he simply smiles and watches the strange dance going on before him without commentary.

“For God’s sake, Ron, I can go and make myself tea without tripping. Sit down!” Hermione has her eyebrows furrowed; the expression made even fiercer by her exposed forehead. The bun atop of her head is frizzy and barely held together with more than one hairband.

Ron raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry, ‘Mione. It’s just, you know, like nerves?” The redhead looks confused over his own words.

Hermione rolls her eyes, her annoyance already forgotten by how much she seems to feel towards Ron. It’s clear in the softening of her face, the adoration in her eyes. “Such a Weasley indeed. Harry, what tea do you want?”

“Same as always, thanks.”

The apartment Ron and Hermione now share is homely. The colors are warm and there are many pictures lining the walls, from Ron and Hermione’s childhoods, to moments captured during their school years. Harry looks at the picture they have put above the fireplace, one that someone took not long after Voldemort fell, where all three of them are clutching onto each other, dirty and crying.

Ron thumps his shoulder against Harry’s. “Have you furnished a room at Cliffside Lookout for your godbaby yet?”

Harry snorts. “Of course, right next to Teddy’s room. Kreacher helped me again, in-between of scolding me for not knowing anything about color coordination.”

“I’ll never figure out how you and that elf got to become friends, mate. But good for you, at least someone is babying you in our place.” Ron nods towards the kitchen, where Hermione is swearing up a storm about something. The wizard laughs.

“Ron! Why is there jam in my sugar pot?”

Harry notes the suddenly pale look of his best friend and wonders if he should intervene. But decides it’s better to sit back and watch things play out, especially when the poor sugar pot is probably not the only place where Ginny and George have left surprises.

“It’s not me!” Ron finally retorts back. “And besides, you’re a witch. You can transfigure the sugar back.”

Hermione doesn’t answer anything back, but the kettle whistles sharply, so she must have done just as Ron suggested. Soon there is a cup of tea in Harry’s hands, cookies on the tiny table before him and Hermione’s far too knowing look directed his way.

“How are you?”

That’s a loaded question, for how simple it pretends to be. Harry turns the cup in his hands round and round, eyes downcast to not see worry painting his friends’ faces older than they are. There are many answers he could give, the ones that he uses when Molly asks, when other friends ask. But just like Harry finds it impossible to lie when Remus is the one on the other side of the table, he cannot lie now either.

Harry sighs long and deep. “I don’t know. Tired.”

Ron’s hand is warm when he reaches out to squeeze Harry’s shoulder. “I think out of all of us, you have the right to that, mate.” There are biscuit crumbs on the corner of his mouth. Some things never change. “What about that book restoration work you mentioned?”

Hermione is quiet. With age and everything that they have lived though she has thawed out the need to know and ask a million questions, sometimes. Right now she just sits back and listens, content to let Harry work out the tiny details, the words that not always come out right.

A part of Harry misses the barrage of questions and suggestions.

“I got an owl back that they would be happy to have me. I did pass the courses and all that. They have a tiny shop in Diagon Alley, by the Knockturn entrance, you know the one that was shut down for a long time after the war? I’d be there all on my own after probation, which is nice.” Harry sips at his tea. The warmth travels inside of him, through his bloodstream and warms the wizard from the inside.

Hermione chuckles, pleased. “Oh, that does sound lovely. And you’ll be close to George. Do you know who will be there with you during the probation?”

Harry mulls over what little he remembers of the letter, squinting into nothing for a little bit. “Ah, a witch called Levante Alby, I think?”

“Never heard of her.” Ron has licked off the crumbs from the corner of his mouth and is already eating another biscuit. “Do you know what you should do? This yogi thing that Hermione does now. It’s all about breathing and funny poses.”

“ _Yoga_ , and it’s more than that, Ron.” Hermione tuts. A curl has come loose of her bun and now hangs before her eyes, bouncing every time the witch moves.

Ron just rolls his eyes and turns back to Harry. “Whatever it is, you should do it. If it can get Hermione in a better mood after a sleepless night, then it can do anything. Those muggles are damn crafty when they want to be.”

…

Harry is home and he cannot sleep.

It’s the middle of the night and there is hurt inside of Harry. It’s a little bit physical and a little bit emotional, an emptiness that eats him away when the nightmares come and when he jumps at sudden movements in the shadows. There are scars that pulse with the memories of what left them, and Harry wishes he could forget, but also wants to remember these things forever.

Sometimes, Harry laughs to himself, it feels like he has been stitched together and left all wrong.

He rubs at the lightning bolt scar that once was and now is just a pale patchwork of jagged lines that never tan. It hasn’t bothered him ever since Voldemort’s body fell dead on the cracked stone of Hogwarts’ floor, but it’s a reminder anyway. A reminder of what Harry was raised to be. Not a child, but a sacrifice. A pig for slaughter, as Snape had once put.

Once Harry had thought the most of Dumbledore, had respected the old wizard in a way that Harry had never respected anyone else. Now, these days, when Harry has too much time to think and too much jaded edges moving inside of him, he can finally admit that his respect has morphed into anger. Into a hate of kinds, maybe even childish in some ways.

“ _Lumos_.” Harry waves his wand and the tip glows the color of honey.

Tonight, it’s neither warm, nor pleasant outside. The cliffside moans with the strength of a storm, raindrops hard and heavy as they bang against the windows. If during the day Harry finds the sea a calm mirror, at times, then tonight he thinks of a yawning abyss that swallows souls like candies. Waves crash against the cliffs and wards around his house shiver with how electrified the air truly is.

Lightning bleaches the sky white. As white as Harry remembers the King’s Cross Station was when he died. He watches the veins of the lightning blink in an out of existence and swallows.

The kitchen is cool. Harry mumbles the incantation for a heating charm as his bare feet pad across the cold wood.

Another lighting strike lights up the stormy night. Harry huffs when he realizes that one _lumos_ is not enough to get him through the night. He turns around, tries to see where Kreacher has left the candles that Harry uses on nights like these. The location is always the same, but Harry always looks for them anyway.

“ _Incendio_.” He lights up a few of them, then waves his wand in the same pattern that Professor Flitwick taught him during his first year, the movement now a muscle memory, “ _Wingardium leviosa_.”

The same honey glow fills the kitchen. Harry watches the candles float around his kitchen, finds himself giggling as he thinks of the enchanted ceiling in Great Hall, how even now he marvels at the beauty of it.

“I have a tiny one, minus the skies, now.” Harry laughs to himself as he busies himself with a kettle.

The storm rages on and the clock ticks past three in the morning. Harry drinks his tea and wonders if he will ever manage to sleep through a storm again. His glasses are too tight on the bridge of his nose, so Harry pushes them up, wrinkles his nose when the scent of rain protrudes in every nook and cranny of Cliffside Lookout. Refreshing. Like a new start, the old washed clean of dust. It’s strange, but Harry doesn’t much enjoy the scent. Something about it feels fake.

The clock dings seven and Kreacher finds him curled up by the dining table, the mug empty of tea and dark bags under his eyes. The house elf sighs long-suffering and sets about to make breakfast. Harry finds amusement in the indistinguishable mumblings of the old elf, relaxes under the shifty, judging glares that Kreacher sends him from time to time.

“Master Harry is supposed to be working today.” Kreacher snaps his fingers to levitate a plate of sandwiches over to Harry, mouth pulled into a judging line. “So why is Master Harry already up?”

Harry bites into a sandwich. “You know me and storms don’t get along.”

Kreacher hums. “Master Harry better be sleeping the next night.” An unsaid _or else_ hangs in the air like an ominous warning.

“Sure, Kreacher. I’ll try to sleep tonight.” Harry feels amused by the elf’s weird mothering.

Kreacher grumbles some more, but then disappears to get Harry’s work clothes ready. Harry eats his sandwiches and watches the morning light dance across his windows, the tiny flares that twinkle across the kitchen ceiling when the light hits something shiny and reflective. Maybe better days are coming.

…

Levante Alby is a short, old witch that, when she first sees Harry, merely blinks once and immediately moves on to what needs to be done and how it will be done. Her hands are surprisingly steady as she points out the instruments around the dark shop, the books that have piled up on the _received tasks_ desk, some dusty and some squeaky clean.

The witch speaks in a rather loud voice, her English accented in a way that Harry does not recognize, but it feels familiar and heard. She reminds him of McGonagall, with the way that Levante doesn’t seem to care of Harry’s supposed achievements and fame, but only the work he already has and will put in.

“We use magic and our own hands, because the books we get are fragile sometimes, even more than glass. Like thin ice.” Levante explains as she caresses the cover of an old book whose title has long since been lost. “I will show you everything soon. Just remember to be gentle with the books, like you would hold a newborn child. They deserve love and care, especially the old ones.”

Harry likes how the elderly witch talks about the books and the craft. He had gone through training, of course, but being in the presence of someone that clearly thinks the world of the profession is a different feeling. A different take on the job.

Levante turns her wise, grey eyes towards Harry when she has finished explaining how to retrieve words lost to time or damage. “This work is hard and, some would say, boring. It’s only boring if you think of it as boring. It’s also relaxing, and I think you, of all the people, need that, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you.” Harry says with a nod of his head. He breathes in the scent of old magic that hangs in the air, having seeped into the walls from the books. “Do you also work in this shop? I know I will be on probation for a while, with someone working with me, but I wasn’t sure what happens afterwards.”

One of the instruments _dings_ as it moves on its own. Some of the machines look to be muggle, but ones that don’t use electricity and are worked by hand. On one shelf there are various jars of paints and brushes, glass containers with various potions, all new and restocked recently. Harry recognizes some of them, vaguely, and only thanks to the quick and easy lessons during his training courses. They didn’t get too deep when talking about potion usage for certain types of book damage.

Levante has taken a seat by the _received tasks_ desk, her wrinkly face pulled into a thoughtful expression. She smooths her hands down her, surprisingly, muggle pantsuit once. “I will be here for two weeks and then you will be alone, but will be able to reach the main headquarters via Floo network, if necessary. I was under the impression that you preferred to be alone, Mr. Potter?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I just wanted to be sure about the process. Sorry.” Harry runs his fingers through the mess of his hair, winces when he hits a tangle.

“No need to apologize, Mr. Potter. I was also just making sure.” Levante’s lips almost pull into a smile. She then picks one book out of the pile that need to be sorted out and hands it to Harry. “This one will be easy, but I want to see how you will take care of it.”

Harry takes the book, still a little unsure how to act around the elderly witch, but he takes the book, cradles it gently as he carries it to the workbench and takes a deep breath. The first spell comes out as he was taught in the courses and slowly Harry loses himself in the work. It’s not an old book, but valuable to the family. Damaged by floods, ink washed into nothing or grey, unreadable blotches across the pages. It takes longer than it would to someone who has worked years in the profession, but Harry fixes the book, or rather – the diary, to what it used to be eventually.

The twinkling stars on the cover Harry leaves with the touch of age and care that must have been left by the owner of the diary. It speaks of use and of the love that has been entangled in the words left on the pages, could be felt when Harry weaved the handwriting back into what it was before the damage.

Levante inspects the finished product with a critical eye, the eye of a mentor. She hums, then smiles. Her hands are gentle when they pet the diary’s cover, like one would an old friend. “Good work, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you, Ms. Alby.” Harry feels proud of himself.

…

Meeting Remus is always a little bittersweet.

Harry doesn’t quite understand himself why it sometimes hurts to see Remus, why he feels guilty for being the reason why the older wizard is the only one left alive from the Marauders. Maybe it’s the dark thing inside of him, maybe it’s the stupid hero complex that Ginny still teases Harry about, that makes Harry wonder if all of this mess could have been prevented if he simply wasn’t.

But then he remembers the ghosts of his parents and Sirius in the forest, before he willingly went to die and Harry shakes the thoughts away. Lily and James loved him enough to die for him, Sirius loved him enough to spend years in Azkaban and then willingly take what was meant for Harry… Their sacrifices should not be for nothing, for Harry to feel like they were wasted efforts.

But it still is bittersweet to see Remus, sometimes.

“Ah, don’t look at me like that, Harry. I thought we had this talk ages ago already.” Remus shakes his head and the tiny smile on his lips, despite the scars on his face, makes the man look so much younger.

Harry bounces Teddy on his knees and looks down in slight shame. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

“You sound like daddy when mommy scolds him, uncle Harry.” Teddy giggles where he has hidden his face in Harry’s armpit. “And then mommy makes this long _whoosh_ sound and shakes her head, like granny does when I break her ugly teacups.”

“I knew you were doing that on purpose.” Remus spares his son a glance and then looks behind him to make sure Tonks is nowhere near hearing range. “Better not let your mom hear. We’re all safer that way.”

“Doesn’t Tonks also hate Andromeda’s teacups, though?” Harry laughs.

Remus’ nose twitches as the man sighs. He doesn’t look annoyed or angry, just reluctantly amused. His nose twitches again and he stands up to gather up some of the sandwiches on another plate. Harry soon hears the _clack clack clack_ of Tonks’ prosthetic leg as she comes down the corridor. Her nose is already scrunched up in laughter, hair a lilac color that Teddy copies the second he sees.

“I hate them with passion! And guess who told Teddy to get rid of them in the first place, huh?” Tonks comes up to Harry and grabs her son by his armpits and raises him up. She laughs in time with Teddy’s excited yell. “You, little man, are starting to get mighty heavy. Soon only your dad will be able to do this.”

“I will be most honored to.” Remus kisses Tonks’ forehead.

Tonks grins wide and happy, Teddy now placed comfortably on her hip. “You better, babe.” She then turns to Harry and winks. “Heard you’re doing good at the new workplace? Ron’s acting like a proud dad at work, that tosser.”

“Tosser!”

Remus and Tonks share a look before glancing down at their proud-looking son. Harry hides his amused grin behind a sandwich, all too familiar with Teddy’s extensive vocabulary, mainly thanks to Tonks. Not that the parents seem too bothered by that, they just sort of accepted the fate of being constantly reprimanded by the grandparents about their and, in turn, their son’s bad habits.

“Yeah, uh, the book restoration. It’s pretty great, actually. I like the quiet and peace, you know? No weird looks or people that try to suck up to me.” Harry makes a face to get Teddy to giggle, although he is nowhere near Tonks in that regard, obviously.

“We’ll, that’s good, Harry. I’m glad you’ve found something that works for you.” Remus really does look proud, maybe even relieved.

Tonks sits in Remus’ lap and reaches for a sandwich. “If you get any dirt on old pureblood families do let me know. I’m always up for juicy details, but mom doesn’t tell me any anymore.”

Teddy has crawled back into Harry’s lap and now is squinting very seriously at him. Harry blinks down at his godson.

“I don’t think it works like that, but sure?” Harry grins when Teddy starts to morph his hair and face to look like a miniature version of himself. “You’re pretty good, huh? Wanna take my place for fancy public things that I’m expected to attend? I’ll pay you.”

Tonks snorts hard enough to choke on her sandwich. “In a couple of years maybe, but I’ll keep that offer in mind. Gonna squeeze you out of your savior money.”

“Evil.” Remus mumbles against Tonks’ shoulder, though his eyes shine in mischief.

Harry feels warm, surrounded by this little family. Remus is the one thing he has left that connects him with the past, with James, Lily and Sirius. Maybe Remus feels the same, maybe not, but there are times when the wizard looks at Harry with something unreadable in his eyes, a mix of pride and pain that is hard to take in.

“They’d be proud of you, you know?” Remus says when they stand by the door of the Lupin house. “Of everything you have done and are doing right now.”

Harry stammers a little bit over what to say, then swallows. “Thanks.”

They hug. Harry holds tightly onto Remus, gathers himself and then pulls away. Remus rolls his eyes and ruffles Harry’s hair, making it even more messy than it already was. There is something unsaid in the soft, warm way that Remus regards Harry, something that doesn’t need to be put into words. Harry waves as he leaves, refreshed and light, wondering about the next visit to the Lupin family. His family.

…

“Honestly, Harry, Remus is like your third father.” Hermione has ink on her cheek, a muggle pen stuck in her hair.

Ron is trying to very gently clean off the smudge without Hermione really noticing. “Better three dads than six siblings.” He manages the feat, but blushes slightly pink when the witch rolls her eyes at him.

“You love your family, mate, don’t lie.” Harry laughs even though the sooth from the fireplace get in his nose.

Ron merely sticks his tongue out at Harry. Hermione calls them both children.

…

Harry wipes sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He’s alone in the shop, Levante having left the day before to the main branch, her handshake strong and words hopeful for their future cooperation. Harry himself is also proud, even if he has yet to do anything major. But these books hold a certain kind of old magic that he enjoys feeling and handling, repairing or soothing out the twisted edges of it.

The pile on top of the _received tasks_ desk has gotten smaller – only the most challenging requests are left.

Some of the books there feel like dark magic, some are sad. Maybe, Harry think to himself as he picks up a book that feels slightly _tired_ , he will soon start to think about these books the same way Ollivander thinks about wands. Like they have their own personalities, a specific mind of their own.

The bell by the door tinkles gently as someone walks in. Harry puts the book he had just started to examine on the workstation before him.

“Hello, how can I help you?” Harry asks as he rounds a shelf that stretched from floor to ceiling.

Before him stands Draco Malfoy. It has been a while since they have met and been truly alone. The trials after the war were hard on them, even if Draco and Narcissa were both genuine in their gratitude when Harry testified for their freedom. The, sometimes, they meet at the charity and remembrance balls where the Malfoys and Harry simply exchange polite greetings, maybe a _how are you_ or a _it’s been a while_.

After the funeral of Lucius Malfoy, the meetings during these events stopped, since Draco chose to not attend and Narcisa had left the country, from what Harry knows.

“Potter.” Draco straightens himself out, shutters closed.

Harry is still tired. Tired of old, schooltime spats started by childish jealousy and foolish pride. He had forgiven Draco a long time ago. So, he simply smiles politely, the way sellers and shopkeepers smile when they greet a new customer. “Hello, Malfoy. How can I help you? If it’s about a request that has been made a while back, I will need the case number to check if it’s already done or not.”

Draco swallows and his Adam’s apple bobs. He’s still pale, though the shadows playing on his skin and the white shine of his hair make the wizard seem sickly. There is something fragile to Draco. It’s in the way his shoulders stay tensed up, the immaculate posturing, the lips that have been bitten a painful red.

Harry waits.

Draco swallows again, exhales. “Ah, no. I saw that the shop has opened again, so I wanted to… wanted to put in a request.”

The man’s fingers are slender and shake slightly when he retrieves the leather-bound book. It looks burned, the cover and page corners curled up into themselves. Draco handles it gently, carefully he lays it before Harry on the desk that has the bookkeeping journal and an old cash register on it.

“If possible, I’d like to have this saved. It’s… important.” Draco lets his finger linger on the cover; his lips almost pulled into something sad, regretful. He’s still so closed-off, the picture-perfect pureblood heir.

Harry leans down to examine the book. There is strange magic on it. He doesn’t touch it yet, but does tap it gently with his wand, mouths the words for the incantation to detect how damaged the book is. There are curse residues on it, a malice to it that Harry has only seen during his courses. But it’s not an impossible job. Just hard and, probably, long, as it would be Harry’s first time working on something this complex.

“It can be restored.” Harry straightens out and puts his wand away. He glances at Draco from behind his unruly fringe and over his glasses. The other wizard is slightly blurry, but Harry thinks it’s better to see the world in mist than whatever he might see on Draco’s face. “It will take time, I’m not sure how long yet. Or I can send it over to the main office where they might do it faster.”

Draco stays silent. He has looked away from the book only once, when Harry was performing his spells. The man’s jaw flexes, his eyebrows furrow in thought as he goes over the options. Probably wonders how safe the book will be here, with Harry left to take care of it.

“How long?” Draco finally asks.

Harry hums. “Well, I’m not sure, as I haven’t worked with books this curse damaged before. I want to say two weeks, maybe three? Something thereabouts.”

Draco has finally looked Harry in the eye, the grey of his irises strangely sharp and bright in the shadows of the shop. Harry doesn’t react at the intensity of the gaze, the evaluation of his truthfulness and trustworthiness that is taking place. He just sighs. Why is it so hard for some people to let go of the things that happened at Hogwarts, the things that matter even less now than when they happened.

“I’m not going to do anything to it, apart from what I do with any other book that I have worked on. I’m over our dumbass feud already.” Harry thinks his words taste sandy, overly practiced and rehearsed. They are the truth, but he wishes he wouldn’t have to say them.

“I…” Draco seems taken off-guard. “No, I… You’re right. We’re all adults now, I suppose.” He looks down at the book, bites his bottom lip and then faces Harry again, assured and calm, the same act of a pureblood heir as he was minutes ago. “I’ll leave it in your care, then. Let me know when it’s ready and how much I will need to pay.”

Draco turns to leave, pauses. He looks back just enough so that Harry sees his side profile, the aristocratic jut of his nose. “Thank you, Potter.”

Harry blinks in time with the jingle of the bell. The world outside of the shop moves on in a colorful blur, though Draco seems the only thing that is sort of outside of it. Like the wizard doesn’t belong, or maybe doesn’t _want to_ belong to the bustle of Diagon Alley. Harry wonders if he is the same.

…

The book is a journal. It’s sealed behind a charm that makes the contents hidden inside invisible to anyone but the owner, there are other, more common journal charms woven into the spells that were meant to keep the journal safe and prevent it from getting lost. But something dark had torn through them and left holes nehind, apart from the physical damage.

Harry examines the journal closely, carefully as to know what, exactly, he is dealing with.

The door to his stop opens and the bell rings again. Ron’s quiet greeting is muffled, but Harry hears it anyway. He doesn’t step away from the journal and simply waits for his best friend to come to him. Ron’s fiery red hair contrasts harshly against the muted, dark colors of the repair shop.

“Hey, mate! I brought lunch! Merlin’s balls, though, eating here with that supervisor of yours was damn _awkward_. I think she hates me.” Ron sets his lunch on an empty coffee table that Harry pulled out of the storage.

“Nah, she only did that narrowed eye look to get under your skin. Whenever you left she got this satisfied look about her, the same kind ‘Mione gets when she unravels a particularly difficult problem.” Harry dusts off his hands, then wipes them off against his jeans for added measure. “What did you get?”

Ron already has his mouth full, cheeks bunched up and sauce on the corner of his lips. “A lot of different curries, from that muggle Indian place that we like. The case I got put on is annoying and I wanted to get away from the other guys.”

Harry digs into the curry with an acknowledging hum towards Ron’s ranting. As per department rules the man can’t get too into details, not even with friends and family, in case something gets out to the wrong people, but Harry doesn’t mind the vague comments and general whining. It’s the same as with some of Harry’s own books, after all. He does snort spicy curry up his nose when Ron starts ranting about something that the new head of auror department had done, which lead to a department-wide panic.

“—so yeah, everything was a mess and it took us all a whole day just to get the right documents and reports in order. Like, why would he even think that conjuring a storm in the middle of the office would go down well?” Ron licks his fingers clean of naan bread and curry grease rather viciously. “Anything new for you?”

Harry sips his mango lassi. “Not really? Well, Malfoy came in yesterday.”

Ron raises his eyebrows. “Our Malfoy? And he was fine with you working on his stuff? Huh…” He squints at his bottle of butterbeer in hopes there is some left.

“Yeah, I thought he’d either walk out or get someone from the main office.” Harry glances at the book that he has yet to even start properly working on. “Seemed very, don’t know, glum, I s’pose.”

“Well, he and his mum have had pretty shitty after-war years. The aurors still need to go and do check-ups on them, like, once every three months to make sure they are behaving. Though, with Malfoy senior gone they aren’t as concerned anymore, from what I hear through gossip.” Ron burps rather loudly. He leans back in the rickety chair and sighs long and drawn-out, having had his fill.

Harry still has a little bit left. Years spent in Hogwarts, then the rest on his own, have managed to teach him that food is no longer something that he needs to be eaten as fast as possible, in fear that it will be taken away or just not _there_ the next day. Harry has learned to enjoy his meals, to take his time and not hurry.

The naan bread is still warm as Harry bites into it. He chews for a moment as he thinks. “Sometimes I miss the days when Malfoy was up to something. Now it’s just boring adult shit and the occasional nervous breakdowns and identity crisis.”

“I _don’t_ miss those days. When you got into one of your Malfoy moods it was like watching a gay train wreck, even if little, icky younger me didn’t know a thing about gays.” Ron balls up the paper takeout bag and lobs it at Harry’s head, laughing louder when the throw hits target straight on. “Besides, what’s better than an existential crisis and having the money to fund it?”

Harry wrinkles his nose. “You spend too much time with Hermione _and_ Michael Corner. I knew it was a bad idea when he was appointed your personal medwitch.”

“Leave my dude Michael alone! Me and him have very deep and _insightful_ talks while he is trying to stop me from bleeding out!” Ron tries very hard to keep a straight face, but can’t hold the laughter in for too long.

When Ron leaves Harry takes care of the trash, mostly using _evanesco_ to get rid of the bags and containers. He sighs before getting back to work, no longer in as happy a mood as he was in while his best friend was around. The journal is a tricky thing with too many spells melted into one mess, made worse by whatever had been done to it and the passage of time.

…

Draco comes to the shop instead of answering via owl, as Harry would have expected the wizard to do. There is something panicked and wild hidden behind the mask of careful indifference when Draco takes a deep breath before speaking.

“What, exactly, did you mean when you wrote that the revealing of personal information stored inside the journal is unavoidable?”

Harry looks away from Draco and towards where he had placed the journal for the time being. He had thought, _hoped_ that Draco would not come her in person, but chose to reply via owl as well. It’s hard to explain these things in person, not that Harry has had a lot of chances to do so to begin with. Most of the customers already know that restoration entails unraveled secrets, thoughts meant only for the old pages being seen, in some capacity, by Harry’s eyes as well.

When Harry glances back at Draco the other man takes a deep breath. It’s not arrogance that Harry meets, but uncertainty, fear. And he understands.

“For me to restore it to what it used to be before, pages and text, I need to dismantle the wards and spells on it. Because of the damage, physical and magical, I’d need to get rid of _all_ the spells, the one that protects the text from strangers included.” Harry rubs at the back of his neck, slightly uncomfortable. “Some people know it might happen, some don’t, so I prefer to let the owners know either way.”

The pause stretches on. Harry fidgets with his fingers.

“You can still refuse. I haven’t started anything yet.”

Draco jumps at the words, scowls Harry’s way. “It’s not _that_.” He makes a face, a grimace of sorts, then rubs between his eyes. “Fuck. Just, don’t look too deep into what you might or might not see.”

“We all had it hard during Voldemort’s time, Malfoy. Just because my experience was generally fucked, doesn’t mean yours was any less shitty on accord of you not being a part of the undesirable groups.” Harry knows he’s also scowling, the furrow between his eyebrows a rather telling sign.

At the time, perhaps starting even from so much as his first year and even almost until the end of the war, Harry thought, despite his crush, that Draco was just a stuck up shit who used his father’s name for selfish reasons, for the _value_ of it. But then Harry remembers the time in Malfoy mansion, the fear that had turned Draco thin and bruised, remembers Draco lying for him when that would have cost the other wizard more than just a slap on his hand and a fake reprimand.

Trauma and fear are things that cannot be compared.

“You truly are a bleeding Gryffindor even now, Potter.” Draco almost laughs. His lips are pulled into an incredulous smile, or something that might be that. “But you’re right, I suppose. The Dark Lord ruined those around him in different ways.”

The clock ticks and outside of the shop life moves in in a jumble of loud noises and colorful blurs of magical folk of all ages hurrying along with their chores. The monochromatic world around Harry is calm, even with Draco’s presence in it. There is still something fragile in Draco’s gaze when he looks at the journal, as he seems to think things over.

Harry lets him. He has also mellowed out after everything, after dying and coming back and trying to find himself again.

“How much will you see?” Draco ask finally.

“As little as I possibly can.” Harry doesn’t promise and give concrete numbers. They don’t matter.

It’s hard to tell if the answer works for Draco, but the wizard doesn’t say anything else. He just nods and leaves. Harry watches him go yet again, feeling like, perhaps, something changed between the two of them. There in an itch, a need left over from years of wanting to know what Draco has been up to, that makes Harry want to know everything, find out what the journal holds. But he knows better than to give into it, to become someone that disregards both human and work boundaries, rules, _decency_.

Harry goes back to work.

….

Hermione gives birth unexpectedly one rainy morning when the clock turns barely a few minutes past two.

When Harry is allowed to visit, the only one Hermione had trusted to be allowed to come to the muggle hospital she chose to give birth in, together with her own parents, he first sees the witch grinning down wide and amazed at the sleeping bundle in her arms. Hermione is still sweaty and her hair a mess, bare legs open wide under the blanket and her feet hanging out the sides.

Ron has a black eye that Harry tries his best not to laugh at.

“She looks like a dried raisin.” Harry is holding the newborn carefully, as per the nurse’s instructions.

Hermione huffs from her hospital bed. “Maybe, but she’s _the best_ dried raisin. She already has the Weasley hair and I bloody love it.”

“Mum’s gonna cry.” Ron unhelpfully notes as he gently pokes his daughter’s chubby cheek. “She’s gonna loves this wrinkly, brown raisin and send us so many knitted clothes and then tell me I’m doing a shite job at holding her right. It’s gonna be amazing.”

They all share a laugh. The nurse comes back again, holding an icepack for Ron to put over his eye. While Ron is being slightly embarrassed by the whole ordeal, the nurse rolls her eyes and simply says that she has seen far worse done to husbands by their wives during the delivery process.

“It’s because you guys are useless and annoying.” Hermione says sagely from her hospital bed. She has her daughter sleeping in her arms again. “Also, you were about to break at least fifty different laws concerning muggles and I needed you to shut up.”

Harry is simply sitting back and enjoying the friendly ribbing going on between his best friends. He doesn’t want to get into it, if only to not be attacked from two sides at the same time. They all know each other far too well by this point to have a fair fight.

“Well I wasn’t the one who told me, and I quote, we got to this hospital, or I end your life, Ronald Bilius Weasley. You know I’m still learning.” Ron dutifully keeps the icepack on his eye.

There is a knock on the door and Hermione’s mom pokes her head in. She smiles at the three of them, then ushers her husband in as well once she has determined that everyone is awake, there is no Ron murdering going on. Harry gets up from his seat and offers it to Mrs. Granger.

“Oh, you’re such a nice boy, Harry. Bless your heart.” Mrs. Granger pats Harry’s shoulder and then immediately turns to Hermione and coos at the sleeping baby girl. “Oh, look at that hair! Luis, look at that hair! Mio, oh, she is so adorable. How are you holding up, honey? We sent an owl to Molly before coming over, since we weren’t sure if she knows, by the way.”

Hermione simply grins. “I’m good. I’m still on pain medication, so I don’t feel anything, but I’m pretty sure everything down from my hips is a war zone. I think Ron let Molly know, but better safe than sorry.”

Mr. Granger nods very solemnly from Ron’s side. “I remember when Mary had you, she broke my fingers during the birth. You got away pretty scot free, son.” He squints his eyes at Ron’s black eye critically. “Wish I had some of your potions at that time, though.”

Ron shakes his head. “Oh, I’m not gonna take any this time around. ‘Mione said if she goes through pain then I have to as well. We made a pact.”

Harry waves at Ron and Hermione then, wanting to give the family their own privacy for now. He leaves the hospital feeling good, elated. Seeing his two best friends so happy and content, despite the tiredness, had been such a wonderful sight. He breathes in the cool early morning air and wonders if one day he will also get to hold a child of his own. It’s a fleeting thought, not something that Harry bothers lingering on, since it’s merely a side effect of holding a newborn.

…

The lingering uplifting happiness that had settled onto Harry after Rose’s birth is still there, present as he finally starts to properly work on the journal that Draco brought it.

Unraveling the spells takes time. As Harry had told Draco, he needs to get rid of all the magic seeped in and around the journal. Thanks to the magical damage it’s hard, especially when Harry doesn’t want to damage the journal any more than it already has been. One spell at a time, one curse residue after another Harry untangles the mess.

It takes a week to get the journal clean of the magic that had both tried to protect it and destroy it.

Harry’s forced to cut some of the old pages out with muggle tools to take care of them separately from the journal itself, as some of the texts, both lost and still lingering like shadows on the said pages, are finicky and might influence the rest of the journal’s restoration process.

When Harry starts work on the pages themselves, one by one, he tries not to read what he now realizes are Draco’s most personal thoughts, the feelings the other wizard had gone through during school. When the times were good, from what Harry can tell, the echo of the feelings that the journal had preserved are happy and light, but the further down the journal that Harry goes the darker and more negative they get.

A part of Harry _understands_. Perhaps, like he had told Draco the last time they met, not fully and completely, but he does know desperation and poisonous, consuming anger that comes with grief and trying to process loss and own weakness.

Because of the curse damage Harry is forced to pay closer attention to the last entrees of the journal. He sees Draco’s frantic wonderings about Voldemort, the man’s fears of his family and his own fate if there would come a time when the Malfoys were no longer valuable or good enough servants.

Draco has written about the time when Harry, Ron and Hermione were caught and brought back to the Malfoy mansion. It’s then that Harry needs to take a break himself, because the memories that he tries not to go back to are painful.

Sometimes, when the nightmares are the worst, Harry hears the way Hermione screamed as she was tortured, how useless and _weak_ he had felt when there was nothing he could do to stop that. Just beg someone else to do something, _anything_.

And Draco echoes the sentiment in the journal. The few words that Harry saw were ones of fear and regret, words of someone raised to think of Voldemort’s cause as right now having to come to terms that it really is just senseless violence and one man’s need for power and terror.

In the evening Harry is desperate to see his friends, to see that Hermione is healthy and happy, even with _mudblood_ carved into her skin, covered by a tattoo of vines crawling along her arm. It’s a baseless fear, one that Harry knows should no longer matter, he should get help for at some point, but it’s still there. It makes his hands tremble and heart beat faster than normal.

Despite the need to check up on his friends Harry doesn’t do that. Ron and Hermione have their hands full with Rose, with Hermione still recovering from the birth, with learning how to care of a newborn.

When Harry apparates home Kreacher gives him one long, narrow-eyed stare before manhandling Harry into a chair and leaving to make tea. Harry breathes through the fear and panic, drinks the tea that Kreacher brough straight away to feel the hot liquid heat him up from the inside. It takes a while to gather himself into something calmer, less jumpy and worried.

“Master Harry be needing a healer, Kreacher thinks.”

Harry can only snort in disbelief. It’s not the first time that the house elf has said this either. “Yeah, probably.”

“Master Harry is good at agreeing but not doing.” Kreacher comments as he snaps his fingers to straighten out an overturned chair.

“Kreacher is good at calling me out on my bullshit.” Harry retorts.

The old house elf does not look as amused as Harry feels for talking back. Soon the fireplace is crackling with fire, the room illuminated only by the flames that jump about the fireplace. Harry loses himself into the monotony of watching the orange and yellow intertwining again and again, head pleasantly empty for once. He’s tired, still so very tired.

Harry wonders if Draco is as well. With the same kind of tiredness that leaves everything in its wake cold and broken, worn too thin.

Somehow Harry has managed to summon paper and pen to himself, both of which now lay in his lap, waiting to be used. The first questions Harry scribbles onto the paper with messy letters, lines shaky as the fear has not fully gone away. But the more Harry writes the easier it gets, the questions turning into confessions and wonderings about just how much Draco could relate to Harry, and other way around as well, perhaps.

It’s a letter that Harry has no intention of sending. It’s too personal for both him _and_ Draco. He’s not close enough to the other wizard and the journal is his work. Work that needs to be done without emotions, even if what he sees is heartbreaking at times. This is not the first letter that Harry has written since starting his work with these books and diaries that need to be fixed. It’s not the first time that thoughts and words of others have affected Harry in a way that he feels more than he should.

The letter to Draco Harry puts in a box, together with the others.

He stands by the bookcase full of memories and things that Harry thinks of as precious. Mementos, as Hermione once called them.

Harry’s fingers still itch with the need to write.

“Master Harry is be writing a lot this evening.” Kreacher notes as he floats another cup of tea by Harry’s elbow.

“Yeah, yeah I am, Kreacher.” Harry looks down at the short, one-sentence note that he has penned with far greater difficulty than it should have been. He takes the cup of tea and breathes in. “Should I send this one?”

Kreacher grimaces. “How should Kreacher know. Kreacher is not master Harry.”

Harry laughs. Quietly and raspy, as if the sound is foreign to him, but he laughs. The tiny note sits still on the desk before him, the paper smooth and without any ink stains. It’s just one, simple sentence that packs more than it seems, more than Harry thinks it should be allowed to get across.

In a moment in madness Harry sends it to Draco.

It doesn’t matter if the other wizard reads it, matters less if there is a reply to it. To Harry what matters most is that he has put his forgiveness onto paper, made it physical and real and sent it away. He was being true when he told Draco that is has been years since they were on different sides of the war, or so it seemed to them at the time, and he has forgotten, forgiven, moved on. But some things need to be told more specifically, with more than just a vague statement.

Maybe he also owed that to Draco all this time.

Living with guilt is torture that Harry knows too well. He doesn’t wish it to anyone, especially not someone that has paid with enough sacrifices after the war that had not been his either. The war should not have been fought and won by Harry and the other kids, even if they were the ones to end it, ultimately. Harry never bothered to think about the kids that were on the other side, weather they were a part of that voluntarily or against their will.

Perhaps now at least one of them will have some peace, however little it may be.

…

Come morning and there is no reply. Not that Harry expected one.

…

The journal is close to being finished.

Harry frowns down at a couple of pages that have been damaged particularly bad, trying hard to make sure the magic is a constant, _even_ hum around him and guides the words properly into the blank spaces. Some of them don’t want to go back, so they fight back against the magic that is trying to lead them. Harry tightens his hold on the magic, swears under his breath when something fights back.

It takes longer than he thought it would to let the last of Draco’s slanted handwriting settle in place. The journal hums, welcoming.

There are just a couple of pages left and Harry breathes in deep. He can finish today. He can finish working on Draco’s journal and then give it back, hope that the other wizard will not dread coming back and facing him. While Harry did not await a reply, he does hope that his letter did not trudge back up unwanted things, bad things.

A couple more hours and Harry smooths his hand over the cover of the journal, now clean of any kind of damage. He has restored the original and only charms, the ones that keep thoughts hidden and private, let only Draco see the insides of the memories and thoughts put inside the pages for safekeeping. The journal hums with magic, calm and simple.

Harry places the journal on the desk where all the complete projects wait for their owners. He takes a template and fills it in to let Draco know that he can come and get it back. The black owl that takes the note away hoots softly before taking flight.

The door jingles and an old man comes in, a letter clutched in his hand. “Ah, young man, hello to you.”

“Hello, sir. How may I help you?” Harry doesn’t smile, doesn’t think it’s the kind of shop where it’s needed.

The old man huffs as he drops the letter before Harry and pats his back. “Damned stairs and cobblestone. I got my summons for the book I gave to you people a while back. Couldn’t come sooner, my bossy daughter in law put me on bedrest. I survived until now, a bloody flu won’t be killing me anytime soon.”

Harry chuckles. “It’s alright, sir, we keep the books safe and sound until their owners do come.” He checks the identification number on the letter and goes to check the finished projects. He finds the old man’s book fairly quickly. “Here you go. The pages eaten up by rot are all brand new again, as is the text within. I put in a charm that will keep water off from it, protect from dampness and so forth.”

“Let me see.” The old man leafs though the book carefully, even if his fingers tremble slightly due to age. He hums and grumbles from time to time as he checks out Harry’s work, bushy eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “Looks to be fine, lad. Let me get my money then.”

As the old wizard leaves Harry can’t help but chuckle at the way the man aggressively pokes at the raised cobblestone in places, most surely cursing them out. A young woman soon joins him and entwines their arms together, leading the old wizard towards the exit of Diagon Alley. Despite the annoyed furrow between his eyebrows, the old man goes with her easily.

…

Draco comes with yet another summer storm, his hair splattered against his face and clothes dripping water all over the shop’s floor. Harry watches the other man wave his wand sharply to cast a few drying charms on himself.

Harry knows the wand, has held it and used it. It’s a strange fact to recall.

“I’ll get your journal.” Harry turns away from Draco.

“Did you mean it. The note.” Draco doesn’t quite ask. He sounds unsure, despite the steady voice and quietness that the words are spoken in. It’s the abruptness and stiltedness that give him away, rather.

Harry stops. “Of course.” He doesn’t hesitate to answer, but does when he wants to ask a question himself. He opens his mouth, closes it, then looks over his shoulder at Draco. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Something in Draco’s eyes softens. It might be a trick of light playing in the man’s eyes, but Harry wants to believe that it’s not that. Draco licks his lips, hesitates for a second, then rolls up the left sleeve of his long coat with jerky movements. All the while Draco doesn’t look away from Harry, doesn’t shy away from whatever is happening right now.

The dark mark is pale and grey now, when the master of it is nothing more than dust that was blown away with the winds. It stands out anyway. Draco’s arm flexes, the pale skin tightens, and the mark moves with it, shivers in the candlelight as if burned by it. An illusion, surely, nothing more than a trick of the eye. It’s a brand that now points out people for others to hate, to blame for a war that took more lives than it had the right to.

“Even with this? Even when I, I _let_ this be put on me?” Draco extends his arm towards Harry. It shakes.

Harry doesn’t know how he looks like right now. He swallows but that doesn’t help. The mark is a reminder and a curse, a cattle brand that burns those that bear it even now.

“Even with that, yes.” Harry feels sad, just so very sad. “And I doubt that you let it be put on, not when you had that monster living in your home.”

The laugh that breaks past Draco’s lips is one of surprise, of disbelief. The coat sleeve falls and covers the dark mark as Draco lets his left arm fall and the right comes up to mess his hair. “Which one of them all? _Fuck_ , the bloody hero of the wizarding world doesn’t give a shit, when everyone else just--- _Unbelievable_.”

This time Harry snorts.

“Majority of the wizarding world is why the war happened in the first place. Voldemort wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did without the prejudices or malice that was already there.” Harry finally brings over Draco’s journal and places it on the counter before the other man. “You _helped_ me, more than most of them ever did, or would have dared to do.”

Harry has never told this to anyone else, but he noticed Draco in that last battle. When he dueled Voldemort, with the curses and spells that were being cast around him, through the pandemonium of _everything_ , Harry remembers Draco helping where he could, shielding a crying girl that had the front of her uniform sticky with blood. In those final moments when the air was but a buzz in Harry’s ears, the pressure to finally _end it_ , Harry heard everyone screaming, heard Draco’s yell between the cacophony of voices. The _please_ that was tacked to the same things that his friends were yelling was desperate and full of trust. It seemed like a hallucination then and after the battle, but because of the journal now Harry thinks it might have been real.

Draco takes his journal, but doesn’t open it. “At the manor, when I lied for you, I thought that that would be it. Aunt Bellatrix could smell out lies so easily and yet… She didn’t, then.” He closes his eyes and grimaces. “But you were the only hope that we all, that _I_ had of ending everything.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say in reply. He resents others for putting that burden onto him, especially because anyone could have killed Voldemort had they tried, had Dumbledore not kept all the cards so himself until the final moment.

“Ah, you hate talking about that, huh?” Draco sounds more to how he was during school, a little amused, a little like he can read through Harry easily.

“That’s one way to put it.” Harry wants to roll his eyes and shoot back a choice of words of his own, but this is not the place for that. “But I meant it. I understand and I don’t hold you accountable for anything. We were both just kids, no matter how grown up we thought we were.”

Everything about Draco eases. It’s like the words spoken had their own power to them. “I never thought that I would be grateful for a Gryffindor’s bleeding heart.”

“Not a Gryffindor’s heart, just mine.” Harry feels relief for some reason.

Draco looks better when he smiles, a true one and not the politely cold smile of a pureblood. The wizard then takes his journal and smooths his palm over the cover, as if to keep his hands full and busy. “Even worse.” It’s teasing - unusual but not unwelcome. “Thank you, for this as well, Potter.”

“Of course, Malfoy.”

As he leaves Draco hesitates for a moment by the door. Under Harry’s curious gaze he turns around and looks indecisive for a beat, then two. The man closes his eyes, opens them again when he has come to a decision.

“Which parts did you see, from my journal?”

Harry takes off his glasses and busies his hands with cleaning them. “The, uh, about the time when I was on a run after and before escaping from your, I mean, the manor. Parts from fifth and sixth years, as those were the most damaged and I had to make sure the text didn’t scramble up.”

Draco takes this in with thoughtful silence. It stretches between them for uncomfortably long.

“Very well. Good. But just so you know, I don’t always tend to treat the people I hav- _had_ crushes on as I did you. You were just impressively annoying and too Gryffindor for me to bear.” Draco’s cheeks have colored slightly pink, despite the confident air around him. “ _This_ changes nothing.”

Harry blinks, despite the world that he sees being a blurry mess. “Cru--? _What_? What are you talking about? I just saw a couple of lines about how hard it was then, because of Voldemort and your father.”

Another silence and then Draco curses under his breath and escapes into the rainstorm outside. The jingle above the door _dings_ sharply, the sound too loud and grating into the shocked silence that Draco has left behind, and Harry doesn’t know what to do with. Harry needs to sit down. He needs to sit down and understand what Draco had been going on about and the implications left to hang in the air like traps.

…

“So, you’re saying that you both are probably like each other, but there are some possible past hurts and present awkwardness around to properly do anything about it.” Remus summarizes the situation easily over yet another afternoon tea meeting.

Harry only nods.

Remus sips his tea, then mutters angrily under his nose when some gets on his mustache. Harry hides his laugh behind his own cup, one that is chipped and glued together with superglue despite being a part of a home where two fully grown magic users live. But it gives the Lupin home its comfortable feeling, the kind of warmth that Harry enjoys immensely.

“Well, what do you want to do with the possibility?” Remus asks as he has finished dabbing off tea from his mustache.

Harry furrows his eyebrows, pauses. “What I want to do with it?”

“Well, yes.” Remus puts down his cup and holds his hands over his stomach. The man then leans back in the chair with a tiny wince. The full moon is coming up and with it the aches and small pains. “Do you want to let it rest? Or pursue it? It can’t all fall onto the other person.”

Harry thinks about how Draco ran from the shop, about the panicked look in the other wizard’s eye. The baggage they are both carrying. “What if… what if the other person isn’t okay with me and this… _thing_?”

“Do you know for sure?”’

“No?” Harry’s not sure. But he also doesn’t want to push, doesn’t want to become the same kind of obsessive as he had been during school, at times when he got hung up on one certain thing.

A corner of Remus’ mouth twitches. “Then, what do you want to do? If the other person is just embarrassed, or slightly awkward about the situation, perhaps, it would do good to simply provide them with an opportunity to let you know what they want. Since nothing is certain, as of yet.”

Despite how rational Remus’ words are, there is still uncertainty that plagues Harry’s head as he thinks this over. Even if Draco _might_ want something, would the other wizard appreciate Harry butting in now, trying to use this chance? Will it seem like that? It’s true that Harry has tried to get it across that times have changed and he has moved on from all things war and foolish rivalries, but Draco seemed to have been under the assumption that Harry felt nothing but sexual frustration, at best, then and now feels maybe a neutral nothing.

“You’re overthinking it.” Remus butts in with an amused chuckle.

Harry snaps his head up, eyes wide as he gapes at the older man before him. “What?”

“You’re overthinking. It’s not that deep, as you young people like to say. Or my wife, at times.” Remus repeats himself. The amber of his eyes is warm with affection.

Harry knows his cheeks are probably pink by how warm they feel. “But there is history and I don’t know.”

“Harry, both you and young Malfoy were two dumb idiots then and have, by now, hopefully, outgrown the phase of thinking that anything the other does is some kind of a scheme. At worst you will be rejected.” Remus is laughing fondly as he speaks, sounds a little exasperated, “Besides, you fought and ended Voldemort, asking your crush out cannot possibly be as shite as that whole problem.”

Right now, as he slowly wraps his head around the fact that Remus called Voldemort a _problem_ , Harry finds himself stuck between mortification and begrudging amazement.

“How… huh?”

“Harry, _please_. I knew both of your parents through their awkward flirting and crushing phases, I do recognize them in you enough to notice these things. And teenagers are not as smooth as they think they are.” Remus taps his nose once.

Harry breathes in deeply. “ _Merlin_.”

“Merlin indeed, Harry.”

…

Harry takes a break at work the next day in order to pen a letter to Draco.

Remus’ words had sat heavily on his mind for the whole evening and night after Harry left the man’s house. He is still unsure if this will, or can, go anywhere, but there is no harm in trying, in reaching out and offering an _option_ of a possibility. Harry has done many braver, more daring and stupider things before this, writing a letter is easy in comparison.

A feather flutters atop Harry’s work desk as the owl flies away. He hopes it’s a token of good luck.

…

Hermione and Ron do not seem too surprised.

“I mean, you have never been that subtle. Oblivious as well, at times.” Hermione’s hair is a mess atop her head and her shirt has dirty spots all over the front, still moist.

Ron’s black eye has long healed by now. Though right now he has baby powder in his hair and Rose’s drool on his shoulder. “I told you, gay train wrecks. And now it might be a reciprocated train wreck! Your life’s truly looking up, mate.”

Harry glares at his best friend, but doesn’t say anything. Rose babbles in his arms as she waves her tiny, chubby hands up and down quite quickly. She’s incredibly cute with her red curls all puffed up. She squeals when Harry makes a face at her, her laughter shrill enough to make someone wince, but her parents seem completely unbothered.

“You know, now some of Malfoy’s shite seems to make sense, if I think about it as him being weird about his crush on you. Like you were.” Ron points his wand at Hermione’s shirt to clean it, then raises it up at his own hair. After a moment of hesitation, he reconsiders and goes off to the kitchen to wash the baby powder out.

Hermione has meanwhile laid down on the sofa, massaging her breasts. “I love my daughter, but I don’t love breastfeeding. Everything is sore and uncomfortable.”

Harry has by now become rather knowledgeable in the ways of women thanks to both Hermione and Ginny, so neither the sight nor information given to him are anything new. “Potions don’t work?”

“Ugh, no. If the nipples are numb then mealtimes are weird. I asked Molly for advice, since the muggle ones are useless, and she was just _wonderful_ , Harry. I love Ron’s mother more than Ron sometimes.” Hermione yawn in the middle of talking, the sleepless nights and general tiredness catching up with her yet again. “I’m old and tired now, oh god.”

“You’re a new mom and tired, rather.” Harry snorts at the weak middle finger that he gets in return.

Ron ambles back into the living room, hair wet and water dripping on his shirt. “Should we be talking about numb nipples right now?” He scowls down at Hermione. “There is a child in the room and all that.”

“Harry is a big boy, he knows about my dastardly woman woes, Ronald. He can deal with some nipple talk. Might help if he and Malfoy get together and have some _unchristian_ bed sharing going on.” Hermione rolls on her side and pulls up her legs.

“You need to sleep, love. This is on par with exam-time you.” Ron _accios_ a soft-looking knitted blanket and drapes it over his girlfriend gently. “And don’t worry, I will give Harry the birds and the bees talk in your absence.”

Harry rolls his eyes with great exaggeration. “Don’t worry, I’m good with _that_ talk as well.”

Rose claps her hands and manages to surprise herself with this great achievement. Harry coos at her for a little before giving her back to Ron, who boops her little nose with one finger. They chat for a while longer, about work and how the new schedule works out for Ron. Harry shares a couple of funny stories about the ladies that come in his shop with questionable books in need of repair.

“Despite the Malfoy thing, you are much… happier now.” Ron says as he rocks a sleeping Rose side to side. “I’m glad, you know? Me and ‘Mione found our ways to cope a while back and to see you also settle after everything… It’s just so, well, a relief, I guess.”

Harry taps the bottle of cool butterbeer with his nail once, twice, then lets out a long breath. “Yeah, yeah I know what you mean. It’s been, easier. I still have my episodes, nightmares and so on, you know how it goes, but now they aren’t as often. Having a purpose helped a lot.”

They share a moment together. Hermione shuffles out of the living room and sits next to Ron, leans on the man’s shoulder as she hides a yawn behind her hand. The witch is sleep-soft and slow, everything about her warm and calm yet again. She reaches out to hold Harry’s hand in her own, a reminder that they will always be the Golden Trio, always together and there for each other no matter what.

…

Malfoy Manor looms over Harry the same way it had done when he was dragged here by Greyback. Then it was a frightening sight, the house, the aura of it and the way the werewolves laughed scent of fear that had wrapped around Harry and his friends. It does feel more welcoming this time around, less a possible death sentence and more like simply _just_ a pureblood’s house.

There are no more peacocks grazing in the lush gardens.

Draco meets Harry by the front door. The other man is as put together as he has been the last couple of times they have seen each other, only this time the wizard is dressed in a soft, beige sweater and muggle jeans. Harry stops by front steps and waits, unwilling to break any boundaries just yet, even if only on accident.

“Potter.”

“Malfoy.”

It’s not uncomfortable between them. Just tense and unfamiliar, nervous sort of fear lingers in the air for what is to come and how everything is about to play out. Harry doesn’t look away, though. Perhaps it’s very Gryffindor of him, but this time he doesn’t want to be stuck on riddles and unsaid words left out on purpose.

“What you wrote to me. It’s true, yes?” Draco asks. The question is very familiar.

Harry smiles, almost. “I already told you, I’m past petty school pranks. I liked you then, I like you now. I mean, it doesn’t have to go anywhere, obviously--”

“Yes, I gathered that much myself, Potter, thank you.” Draco doesn’t let him finish. He seems even more obviously nervous now than before. “Shite, fuck. I never thought this would actually happen.”

The wind that blows is chilly, but Harry doesn’t even notice it. He finally laughs, a quiet and surprised thing that seems to catch Draco off-guard as well. Perhaps it’s what was needed to break the awkward tension, the awkward fumbling around, not knowing how to proceed and what is the right thing to say.

“Hey, Malfoy, wanna go on a date?” Harry breathes in the wind. Perhaps the best way is the simplest way to go.

Draco relaxes and leans his shoulder against the doorframe and sighs. The same confidence that Harry associates him with has returned. “Sure, yeah.” He pauses, then shakes his head. “This is so bloody weird.”

“As weird as that one awkward handjob we had in fifth year?” Harry quips back easily.

The snort that Draco makes is the furthest thing from attractive. The man covers his face with one hand, his shoulder shake with laughter. “ _Merlin_ , don’t remind me of that, Potter. It was both mortifying and fueled my wank sessions for a long time to come.”

“Same, though.” Harry admits easily enough.

It doesn’t take much for them both to relocate to one of the sitting rooms of the Malfoy manor. The inside has been changed as well, from what Harry manages to catch during his walk through the corridors. If the lines of Draco’s journal that he had to see are to go by, then Draco and Narcissa both probably felt eager to remove the past from these walls and change the house to something new, something better and more welcoming than what the memory of Voldemort and Lucius made it out to be.

“Your peacocks are gone. The white ones.” Harry remarks as a house elf serves him tea. “Thank you.”

The tiny elf blinks large eyes at Harry, bows quickly and then pops away with a loud crack.

Draco crosses one leg over the other as he sips his own drink. It smells like cinnamon. “Yes, well, they reminded mother too much of father. She let a cousin that likes birds have them and they are much happier there, from what I last heard.”

An ancient Malfoy elder from one of the paintings nods along. He doesn’t say anything, but does give Harry a judging once-over before gliding out of the frame and leaving only an empty background behind.

“How do you want to do this, Potter?” Draco asks after a quiet moment.

Harry tilts his head back to think. His own relationship history is not one of the best, so there isn’t much for him to base his wants _on_. But Draco seems to be a different sort from Harry’s usual types and experiences. “I don’t know.” He decides to be truthful. “I feel like I have kind of sucked at dating until now, so not sure. Just see how it goes, maybe?”

Draco’s finger traces the circle of the cup’s edge as he listens along. “With your track record, seeing how it goes usually works out for the best.”

“ _Hey_ , my plans do work. Sometimes.” Harry wrinkles his nose in indignation.

“Sure they have.” Draco grins and his eyes glint. “I don’t mind just going along with what feels right. Everything has been about rules and following orders for so long… Perhaps spontaneity is what I need, and it does certainly work best for you.”

“Spontaneity is what got you my virgin handjob.” Harry sticks his tongue out.

Draco hides a laugh behind his cup, though his eyes crinkle as he grins. “Thanks for the shitty handjob then.”

“Like yours was any better.” Harry throws back, though it doesn’t sound anywhere near accusing or mocking when the words are tinted light with amusement and laughter.

…

Harry takes Draco to the muggle part of London for their dates, wanting to show the other man a part of his own life, the part that is both a painful, dark memory and an escape from the suffocation that the wizarding word can sometimes become.

None of the people that they pass so much as look back as Harry leads Draco towards one of the roller coasters at the amusement park. Harry grins wide at the look of confusion and startlement that Draco has adapted, out of depth as he is.

“You’ll like it! It’s gonna be like flying on a broom.” Harry pulls Draco towards one of the looping tracks that rise high in the sky.

“Somehow, Potter, I don’t trust you.” Draco drawls. His fingers, though, tighten around Harry’s and he looks up at one of the more extreme roller coasters with some interest.

The high-pitched screams of the people before them don’t dither Harry from getting into the seat after them. Draco gets in and sits down slower, more carefully than Harry had, though he is looking rather distrustfully at the handlebar that comes down and straps them to their seat. When the ride starts Harry glances excitedly at Draco from the corner of his eye.

Draco wrinkles his nose cutely. “It seemed much faster from the sideliaaaa--!”

Whatever Draco wanted to say gets cut off mid-scream as the cart goes over the peak and crashes down, following the rails. Harry woops next to Draco, his hair a mess and eyes squeezed tightly shut because of the wind that hits his face. Draco is still screaming, but now it’s out of excitement instead of the initial surprise.

Somewhere in the middle of the ride Draco’s hand settles on Harry thighs and squeezes every time there is a sharp curve, a sudden drop or rise.

When they get off Draco is wide-eyed and his hair a mess, cheeks flushed a healthy pink. “That was marvelous!”

“I told you.” Harry swallows, coughs. His throat is sore from all the screaming.

After a few more rides Harry buys himself some cotton candy, which Draco accepts small bites from with a suspicious glance at the fluffy sweet. They walk around enjoying the atmosphere, watch the teenagers having the time of their lives and older couples enjoying themselves with the slightly rigged prize games. Draco talks more about what had gone after his father’s passing while Harry opens up about his slowly growing dislike towards some parts of the wizarding world.

“It’s not like the muggle world is any better, but it’s like the first impressions have dulled out and now the nasty stuff is more obvious.” Harry stretches his legs out before him. The toes of his sneakers are dirty, one has a sticky soda spot on it. “I’m tired of them all, I don’t know, treating me like a sideshow at times.”

Draco sits properly, one leg crossed over the other. He has taken off his jacket and placed it over his lap. “After the trials I’ve been nothing more than a dirty Death Eater, even if you vouched for me. I always thought my blood somehow made me… better, I suppose. But society proved me wrong.”

“It’s fucked.” Harry agrees.

The heaviness of Draco’s gaze makes shudders run up Harry’s spine. When their eyes meet Draco blinks once, slowly. Here, in this muggle amusement park, hidden away in a corner and out of the way from the excitement of all the people around them, Harry feels like the only thing that Draco sees and acknowledges. The kiss is quick, light thing that doesn’t linger, just promises of something else to come.

Draco tastes like cherries.

“You were right about the muggle world. No one does care about us here.” Draco remarks and his voice is low now, a rasp against Harry’s lips. “I can snog you like this and the only thing someone might care about is our gender.”

Harry doesn’t know when his hand has moved to clutch unto the flawlessly ironed dress shirt Draco had chosen to wear. “Does that mean you’ll keep on kissing me?”

Hunger is evident in the way Draco grins, the darkening of his gaze. His fingers are gentle as they tangle into Harry’s hair, firm when they tilt his head back just enough for a better angle. “I don’t know, should I?” Draco kisses Harry’s jaw, then on the lips once more.

When Harry pulls Draco moves in willingly, easily. They kiss slowly first, then faster as their need bubbles up and over from the years of pinning and wondering about the possibilities not taken. Harry gasps against Draco’s lips and there is tongue licking along the corner of his mouth, into his mouth again. Draco kisses without the pose and finesse that he puts upon as a proper pureblood heir, but, in turn, with a messiness and desperation of a man that has waited for too long already.

“My house or yours?” Harry gasps when they pull apart, laughs at how messy the man before him has become.

Draco’s finger wipes away spit from Harry’s bottom lip. “Mine, I don’t even know where you live.”

Later, when they fall into Draco’s bed, Harry can’t find in himself any regret or hesitation for how quickly they got this far. He breathes deep when Draco kisses down his neck, bites at his collarbone and leaves dark hickeys in his wake. Harry laughs when tickles, pinches Draco’s sides to get the other man back on track, or work him up even more.

The blanket falls on the floor, with their clothes and wands. Harry gasps and arches off the bed when Draco gets low enough, grins against his hip and promises to make it good, make it _amazing_ this time around.

…

The Dark Mark is still so stark on Draco’s arm.

It doesn’t move, isn’t even as rich in color as it used to be, as how Harry had become used to seeing it. Now, with the owner of the brand dead, it simply _is_. A bastardization of a muggle tattoo.

Harry first follows the faded edges of it with his fingers, uncaring of the shiver that makes Draco’s whole body trembled, or the tensing of the man’s arm. He simply maps out the skull and the snake, hisses under his breath just to see if the tattoo still answers.

“You sure you want to touch that?” Draco asks. His tone makes it seem like the mark is disgusting, dogshit that someone has smeared over his skin.

“Why not? I’m desecrating Tom’s special friendship mark with my nasty halfblood fluids and just overall archnemesis aura.” Harry hides his grin against Draco’s chest, places a kiss where he can feel steady heartbeat under his cheek.

Draco slides his free hand down Harry’s back and settles it on his hip, squeezes. Harry pulls his boyfriend’s other arm close to his face, licks the Dark Mark, bites where the snake’s tongue is stuck in a perpetual hiss. Underneath him Draco’s breath hitches and stops.

With a raspy hum Harry opens his mouth and bites into the mark, licks the indents that his teeth have left behind.

“Fuck.” Draco breathes and shifts his hips upwards. “ _Fuck_ , Harry.”

Harry chuckles. He feels Draco’s erection against his leg, makes a noise of satisfaction when the hand on his hip grabs onto his skin, holds on tight enough to perhaps leave more marks behind, atop the ones that are there already. A moan slips past Draco’s lips when Harry leaves another hickey atop the Dark Mark, remarks the brand as his own, eats away more and more of its power.

The shift comes as a surprise and soon Draco looks down at Harry, his blond hair a curtain around his face and arms unsteady as they tremble on both sides of Harry’s face.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

Pleased as a cat Harry tiptoes his fingertips over Draco’s chest, rests his palms in a loose hold around the man’s neck. “I am a menace.”

The kiss is hungry and wild, all teeth and no class. It’s dirty, with saliva dripping down one side of Harry’s face. Draco pulls back just enough to then kiss over the faded spiderweb scar that used to be a lightning bolt, a symbol of the impossible and a mark of damnation, no worse than the dark mark.

“Now who’s playing dirty, huh?” Harry thinks his breath is wet against the curve of Draco’s neck. He wants to bite it, leave indents of his teeth there as well, for all to see.

“Still you.” Draco kisses along the side of Harry’s face, sloppy. “Always fucking you.”

This time Harry laughs and pinches at Draco’s side, where there is more to hold onto. “Fuck you.”

The sheets tangle around them and the room smells, is so hot. Harry gives into the need to be loud. Draco takes pleasure from every noise, every tiny moan and gasp, the curses that are whispered against the pillows. When Harry winds up sitting in Draco’s lap, his sweaty body bared to the warm air of the room the wizard just lays back and lets Harry take charge of everything.

When evening settles in Harry walks into the dining room wearing only a long, button-down shirt of Draco’s and nothing else. Draco can’t seem to look away from his legs.

“Take a picture, will last longer, Malfoy.” Harry enjoys the teasing. Doesn’t matter if it’s with words or actions anymore.

Draco rolls his eyes. “No, thank you. I am fine as I am.”

Harry curls into an uncomfortable chair and bites into the tiny pie that Draco’s house elf brought out for them. He can’t seem to look away from Draco, can’t stop thinking about the unexpected happiness that has seeped into his bloodstream unnoticed. Nothing is fixed, but the jagged edges inside of him have been smoothed out just enough to feel the difference.

Fire crackles merrily in the fireplace. It’s warm.

…

The shop is as quiet as always.

Harry carefully leafs through yet another book, this one an order from the ministry, checking the page numbers to make sure they don’t skip and play around where they shouldn’t be. The book had some major spell damage, a strange backlash as a result of experiments gone awry. Harry did not ask for details. He remembers Department of Mysteries too well, knows that whatever goes down there it’s better to not know.

Doors jingle and he sighs when a couple more page numbers slither around and mix up with dates on the open page.

Carefully Harry puts the book down, leaves it open. He takes off his gloves. “Yes, coming!”

“No need to hurry.” Draco says back, softly.

There are takeout bags hanging from Draco’s fingers, the crinkly plastic of muggle making makes enough noise to fill the entire shop. Not a second later Ron steps inside as well, hair wet from rain and face splotchy red from the wind that has been rattling the windows all morning.

Ron slaps Draco on the back. “Hey, Malfoy, you good?”

“Yes, indeed I am, Weasley.” Draco drops the takeout bags on the tiny table that used to only have two people seated by it at most. The man takes off his long coat and hangs it up, spells away the water and mud that have been carried around the shop’s floor. “I despise this weather. It’s total shit.”

Ron falls into a chair with a sigh. “Don’t get me started on that. I’m glad they have kept me on paperwork while Rose is still little and I’m not out chasing some Polish contraband smuggler.”

“Is it the one with the drugs? Or unknown origin kneazle hybrids?” Harry joins the two. He places a pot of warm tea in the middle of the table.

Draco ruffles Harry hair before sitting down. He is careful with the takeout boxes, still somewhat unsure about the texture of them. “How is Granger and the Grangerling?”

Harry snorts at the narrow-eyed stare that Ron sends Draco’s way, but doesn’t get in the middle. The slowly building friendship between his friends and Draco is not something that Harry wants to get in-between of, or influence in any way. It won’t be the same if he makes or _forces_ it. Though, even without his help everything seems to be working out nicely enough. Hermione even let Draco hold Rose for a little while, was even more amused when the little girl puked all over Draco.

“When’re you gonna meet my mum and the Lupins? Ya know, the whole parent introduction?” Ron asks when all the food is gone and only tea is left to finish.

Something not quite like hesitation flashes over Draco’s face. Maybe fear. The man swallows, clears his throat. “I, uh, we… Have yet to talk about it?”

“Draco is scared of your mum.” Harry grins.

Ron laughs hard enough to almost fall out of his chair. He snorts even louder when Draco starts to protest the fact and the talk then devolves into weird mom things that they both share. Harry gathers the dirty cutlery and cups to wash later and breathes in deep.

When Ron has gone back to work Draco holds Harry’s hand in his and kisses the knuckles one by one. “You’re quiet today.”

“I think I’m just getting better. And happier.”

To that Draco says nothing, just smiles self-satisfied and just this side of smug. Before he leaves Harry pulls Draco down for a quick kiss. They linger, of course they do, like always, but then Draco walks out the door with a promise to see each other soon, perhaps even later. Harry watches the rain swallow his boyfriend and wonders how long it will be before Draco realizes that his coat is still hanging here, in the shop.

It’s a good day, even with the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> i never thought that the day where i write drarry would come but alas... here we are
> 
> this was supposed to be an angst fic with sad boys and sad boys being boyfriends, but then that didn't happen, so idk what this has turned into tbh. idiots dealing with a crush, i guess? idk but it's cute


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